Labour Day on the Lake

 

I large portion of my summer memories are built on days spent at the lake with my family. G-pa would race us around on the lake foe hours on the back of the tube and we would still be begging him for more at the end of the day. I had asked some friends about the possibility of renting a boat together and they said, "Well I don't know about renting, but I have some friends I could call."

As our final goodbye to summer we went out the the lake with the Dyches family and spent the day on the boat with some of their friends. It made my so nostalgic. It had been awhile since I felt that at "home." The outdoors are my happy place.

They had all the fun toy and the kids had a blast! 

Roo was THE CUTEST in the itty bitty life jacket!

The kids were pretty excited to go on the tube albeit, rather nervous. 

 

Sprout couldn't wait to have his turn! The others were pretty content to just sit and watch. 

Sean & Paula (she stayed home with Callie) are the most generous and genuine people you will ever meet. We've had a lot of fun getting to know them better with year! 

 

I'm obsessed!

 Personally, Sprout and I could have stayed on the boat forever, but the vote was to come back to the dock and swim which was awesome too! 

This boy loves the water like his Mama.

E did a great job paddle boarding.... until she got stuck. Being the great parents we are, we chuckled to ourselves and tried to take her down from the dock. Another friend of ours just jumped into the water without a second thought and swam to her rescue. She was very grateful. 

 

Joe being the cool dad making everyone laugh in the water!

 

Duke, Casen, Zach, Josh, Sprout & E. It was the perfect farewell to summer and I was riding a lake time high all afternoon! This is my happy place.

Blueberry Picking

 There was a semi cool day on the calendar so we loaded up the crew and headed out to the blueberry patch. Here are way too many pictures.

Roo was a big fan of all the blueberries!

 

 

 

We didn't stay very long but we had fun soaking up bluthe sun and gathering delectable berries!

Back to School Traditions

Back to school is an exciting and sad time. So many mixed emotions about going back to see friends, who our teachers will be and the summer being over. In August Daddy traveled a LOT! It was a crazy day and then we found out that Daddy's flight was supposed to be delayed. So Mama did movie night solo. We got all showered and ready for bed, loaded up in the car to get Sonic shakes and then we turned on a movie to watch which kept us up waaaaay past bed time, but it was SO much fun!! 

 Another back to school tradition is Daddy makes an epic fort for the kids to sleep in the last weekend before school starts and Sunday night we take it down to get good sleeps for school. Daddy didn't get back until Sunday but we decided to keep the fort up a couple of days anyways. The kids were thrilled. This is a tradition that they REALLY look forward to.

 Such a fun fort Daddy!

 And finally the first day of school is usually a half day, so we stop by McDonalds on our way home and get ice cream cones to celebrate our first day.

 It's usually a very messy affair.

And just like that the "summer" is over. Man that flew by fast!! We are so excited to get back to our routines and the kids are thrilled to be back in class! Shine bright my littles. You are so loved!

Summer Reading

 While we were in Vegas Grammy and I decided to try and get the kids reading during nap time. For E that was no problem. I told her that I would pay her $1/ book she read. At first it was taking her about a day and a half to read a small chapter book. After a week, she was ready three chapter books in one nap time. We had to renegotiate the terms and she got 0.25$/book -$1 depending on how long the books took her. 

When Duke first started, he was struggling a bit. Grammy and Duke would sit down at nap time and read Bob books together and I was amazed at how quickly he improved!!

 Then Gramma's library started a reading program. The kids got a reading necklace after they read 15 books and then they got a bead/per book after that. They were so excited when the got to cash in their beads!

 

 We came home from Vegas and E was demanding that we head to the library for more books.

Sprout even got into scanning and picking out stories. these kiddos were reading machines. In total E read 68 books this summer!!!! That blows my mind. We didn't keep track of Duke's but he was reading quite a bit too! So proud of these kiddos, also glad summer is almost over, E is going to have to put all of that money into the bank! 

As for me, last summer I put "read a book" on my summer bucket list. I wasn't much of a reader. the last book I read was the Hunger Games years ago and while I enjoyed reading, I just never thought I would read more than the one book. Fast forward to one year later and I have read 63 books! 63 books in a year!! That blows my mind. I have come to love reading and find that I must always have abook on the go. Sometimes it takes me longer to read a series than others because... ya know.... life. But I love being able to sit down, and dive into a novel and I'm grateful I opened that first book.

Swimming

Most days while Oma was here we would run errands in the morning and then go swimming in afternoon. And here are WAY too many pictures of summer swimming and I don't even feel bad about it. :)

This little girl said she was done with her life jacket and she was not kidding. She has been practicing her swimming and her diving. She is amazing! 

There was a ton of jumping and Oma was such a good sport catching all the kids! 

Duke was terrified of jumping but after awhile he was a pro!

Peanut was just tall enough to ride the slide and she loved it!

 Oma was kind enough to get them sweet treats. 

Look who's jumping all by himself!?!

Sun tanning? He was this close to falling asleep. 

 

Oh sweet summer time!